I just got one last week and am VERY impressed with the performance. Not quite as impressed with the amount of noise it constantly emits I haven't had a chance to fiddle with the fan settings either in the BIOS or lm_sensors yet, but the setting out of the box are pretty annoying so far.

Can't say i'm entirely impressed with mine. The performance overall is pretty sluggish. Its just fine for web browsing and movie watching, but I wouldn't try to do more than that. Windows 7 felt too sluggish on it. XP feels much much better, and I highly recommend running XP on it. I could not find any overclocking options in the BIOS.

As for noise, it starts out very quiet. However, for some reason it puts out a lot of heat, even when idle. This heat causes the fan to spin up and quickly become noticeable. Its not loud by any stretch of the imagination, but its not silent and I can't even consider it quiet. I don't think the noise would be acceptable to most SPC readers.

The build quality also leaves something to be desired. The flashing white HDD led and blue wireless led are way too bright and obnoxious. There was no HDMI -> DVI converter included in the box. So your monitor either has to support HDMI or you are stuck using VGA until you buy a separate adapter.

Overall the Mac Mini is a much better machine if you are looking for a small, quiet PC. The Mini is *far* quieter (nearly silent), runs a lot cooler, is MUCH faster, and the build quality is superb. The only downside? It costs twice as much...

Thanks for replying to this old thread that I had forgotten. Reading through your response shows me that I should have more clearly qualified my experience. My system is a MythTV frontend running the latest VDPAU enabled everything (Nvidia binary driver, MythTV, mplayer, etc). The way it decodes HD content versus it's power profile is what impresses me to no end.

The fact that the fan runs incessantly is not my highest concern, but it's up there enough that I am considering alternatives. The Asus is quite a bit more money but has the slot drive and includes a useless (to me) copy of Windows 7.

All the other things don't matter to me since the unit is out of sight: annoying LEDs, build quality, WiFi range, etc.

Everything is a compromise, and the better the price becomes, the more compromises are made. You just need to weigh which ones matter to you. As a desktop, I think this thing would suck to no end. As a hidden MythTV frontend, it kind of rocks...except for the fan.

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